Sleeping and Living Past the Snooze

The first part was posted to my blog this morning. I offer the epilogue to those who walked with me today.

      Do not fear no alarm clocks were totally harmed in the making of this day. Slightly injured but a full recovery is expected. I awoke when the first morning report should be falling off the printer’s paper tray. The adrenaline rushed through my body. Feet thudded on the floor and then I stopped. It was a complete and unequivocal stop. The wave of adrenaline subsided, the phone call was made and I obeyed the voice in my head, perhaps the heart or perhaps they spoke in unison. This morning I say thank you for the voice that says sit for a while and be still. Sit and know your heart. Sit and hear no voice but your own. Sit and listen to your breath, your skin and your eyes blinking. Sit and know who you are. 
      I offer my thanks to the voice that said stop. The justice of the world, the hope of the world and the work of the world must first begin with me. Today, for twenty four hours I am retired. For twenty four hours I have a new to do list. I have a new set of meetings to attend and they all start with me. Today, I will make a deposit into my own bank account, I will pay myself. Today I will hear my own voice of need. Today I will save the world and the world will be me. And this I do so that tomorrow I may reach out and love You, the world.
      The snooze day has come to an end. It was a day spent reading blogs of hope, laughter and the ever twisting and turning of life’s Rubik’s Cube. A day alone. Today I was the proverbial fly on the wall walking through people’s lives and eavesdropping on their hearts. Today I was alone among a community of people and our world. Tonight, I watched the sun drift lazily from the lofty heavens and nestle in the earthy horizon. From that same earthy horizon the moon arose to draw my gaze upward again. Like the sun and moon I’ve journeyed from heaven back to earth and from earth back to the heavens. Ah, that has been my day, a sort of vertically horizontal kind of day. I am ready to be a warrior again. May yours come very soon.

A Day with the Dawn

      No one has spoken. The world is still asleep, not even the sun has crawled out of bed. No sounds of traffic except my bare feet motoring to the coffee pot. Dawn, those magical hours before the world, responsibilities and animals awake is MY time. My parents told stories of me, as a child, wandering around the house during the dawn hours. Four to five hours of sleep is usually all I need (or get) and my day always begins with dawn. Dawn is the fertile damp soil under my fingers, it is that jolt of coffee, the cold shower that tells me I am alive to my heart, to my dreams, to my hopes and some days, to my fears.
      Dawn is the wedding march played with gusto in the sanctuary of the sky to announce the bride’s, the sun’s, arrival. The bride’s blushing sweeps across the sky in hues of reds, purples and orange. The sun’s train sweeps slowly across the sky revealing the new day, the blue sky and clouds. A new day has dawned. I have seen dawns, the wedding march, for 365 days times fifty six years and yet I say each day that a new day has dawned. I welcome each dawn as if none other existed. And when the march has ended and the sun stands firm in the sky I join the vows of love for the earth, her creatures and her children young and old.
      A new day is dawning and its magic inspires and beckons the poet and artist. So what the heck happens when I open the garage door and head off to work? If only I could catch it in a jar like fireflies, when I was a child, and let its magic paint my day. Why do I let go of the hand that greets me each day, pulling me up from my bed and calling me to come and play? Why would I be content to sleep through the day and awake only for the dawn? The dawn announces a new day, hours of life, opportunity, hope and growth yet itself has only a life span of minutes. Hours or minutes-is there really a choice? I who use coupons when I shop, to save a few cents, why would I choose to pay such a price? A new day is dawning. The emphasis is on the day not the dawn. Ah, maybe, at last, it has finally dawned on me.